


Cas And Sleep

by mansikka



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fluff and Smut, Human Castiel, M/M, Sleeping Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-04
Updated: 2016-02-04
Packaged: 2018-05-18 02:26:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5894518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mansikka/pseuds/mansikka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three times when Cas is sleeping or can't sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Nightmare

"It's okay, it's okay. I've got you. You can do this, I know you can." Dean stroked hair away from Cas' forehead, leaning down over him and doing all he could to keep him warm, and comforted.

Cas' eyes were wide, and terrified, his head rapidly shaking back and forth on the pillow, refusing to give in to it.

"You can't stay awake forever, Cas,” He whispered, “Your body won't let you, not now." Dean laid his hand on his chest, rubbing small circles there to try to soothe him.

Cas continued shaking his head in denial. "I cannot sleep, Dean. If I sleep, the nightmares will begin again and I cannot-"

"Shh..." Dean interrupted with a kiss.

Cas. Terrifying, all-powerful angel that he had been, the very stuff of some people's worst dreams, had started experiencing his first recurring nightmare as a human, and was adamant that he would never close his eyes again.

The first night he'd woken Dean with his thrashing around the bed, a sharp kick to his shin and a death grip on his forearm that left fingermarks still visible days later.

The second night, it was the frantic gasping that got Dean's attention, so desperate was the noise that Dean worried he was having a seizure and that he would be powerless to help him. He’d been so scared himself that he’d roughly shaken Cas awake, which he cursed himself for over and over, knowing he’d probably inadvertently made the dreams somehow worse.

The third night was the heartbreaker for Dean, woken by the frantic, broken sound of Cas sobbing.

"Faces, Dean. All I can see are their faces," he cried, and less than a second later he was in Dean's arms, tucked under his chin, clinging tightly around him and trembling head to toe. It was all Dean could do to hold on to him.

The faces nightmare was one Dean was all too familiar with. Faces of those who had once been human and had died at his own hand. Faces of innocent bystanders who lived, but were forever changed, by whatever they'd had to witness in their rude introduction to the real monsters that lurk in the dark. Faces of those he'd lost, and those he feared losing, and his own face reflected back in the mirror, no longer unrecognisable.

Dean knew the dream. Far, far too well. But then he'd had much more practice at dealing with it - with them - than Cas.

Dean closed his eyes, holding back any words that he knew would come across as pointless to Cas' ears. Instead, he continued tracing patterns onto his skin with gentle fingers and joined them with just as gentle kisses to his neck, jaw, face; anywhere he could get to, trying to breathe reassurance into him.

"I'm not going anywhere, you know. I can't take the nightmares away, Cas. But I'll be right here if it happens."

"But what if they come back? What if I cannot wake? What if I am stranded?" Cas’ fear of being stuck in some kind of dreamscape existence, suspended between his waking world and the horrors that kept him company when he slept, were also things that Dean understood. But what can you say to reassure a person when you’re trying to convince them of the things that often keep you awake at night too?

"Then I'll come get you. And by that, I mean I'll wake you, like I did last time, right?"

Last time, when Cas had been brokenly sobbing, Dean had woken him with kisses, because no amount of shaking, or speaking to him seemed to do a thing. Cas had been so relieved to be awake that those kisses had been returned so desperately Dean thought Cas was trying to climb into him for safe-keeping. Perhaps he was.

"But what if I-"

And again, Dean silenced him with a kiss, which he felt Cas shakily sigh around, and very slightly relax into.

"Come here," Dean whispered, pulling Cas to tuck beneath his chin, feeling him breathing unevenly against his collarbone as Dean continued rubbing circles into his back.

 

"Try and sleep for me Cas, okay? I'll be here." Dean leaned down enough to kiss him on the forehead and whispered there, "I'm not going anywhere. Ever."

  
  
  



	2. Insomnia

"Not happening tonight, Cas?"

Dean listened, waiting for the inevitable frustrated sigh that Cas would exhale to tell him that he was, indeed, not able to sleep.

His sleeping patterns were beyond erratic, his body not seeming to care in the slightest that Cas' mind still worked in angel ways. It demanded rest while he fought against it, then when he gave in it would jerk him awake with all sorts of strange new bodily reactions. It was a continuous battle that left him with permanent dark circles and what seemed like a constant yawn.

They'd tried just about everything they could think of to help him sleep. No caffeine had lasted one night and one night only; an uncaffeinated Cas was possibly the most terrifying, grumpy thing imaginable. Chamomile tea, hot chocolate and alcohol remedies had been tried next, followed by herbal over-the-counter pills and some stronger contraband pharmaceutical ones that Dean didn't really approve of but was desperate to try, for Cas' sake.

But nothing. No one method seemed to have a lasting impact; just when Cas started to get some colour back into his cheeks from a few consecutive hours, off it would go again.

"No. I don't think I can sleep," Cas sighed up at the ceiling. "I am sorry, Dean. I am preventing you from sleeping yourself."

Dean patted Cas’ stomach and mumbled nothings into his shoulder.

"Turn over for me, Cas."

With gentle encouragement, Dean soon had Cas wrapped in his arms, with his back resting up against his chest.

With soft kisses to the back of his head and neck, Dean snuck his hand under Cas' T-shirt, before sliding it down into the band of his boxers. Cas sighed a little and wriggled back against him.

“If your plan is to distract me from my inability to sleep-”

“Nope. I’m just hoping to make you sleepy, actually,” Dean mumbled against his ear, continuing to slowly slip his hand under Cas’ boxers and pull them down as far as he could one handed.

“I do not believe I would be much ‘use’ to you at the moment, Dean.”

Dean felt the air quotations under the blanket and forced himself not to laugh, since now was very definitely Not The Time.

Instead, he wrapped his fingers around him, and very, very gently stroked him until he was hard.

Cas’ sigh was different then; appreciative, melting under Dean’s touch. It took next to no time between Dean’s well-practiced fingers and his kisses and words of encouragement against his neck for Cas to be making all kinds of breathy little sighs and whimpers in his arms.

Dean forced himself to stay as calm as he could; this was all about Cas, and it wasn’t like it would kill him to miss a turn. Just thinking about how enthusiastically Cas might thank him in the morning if he actually managed a good night’s sleep was not helping Dean concentrate at all, so he went back to concentrating on reining it all in, and all for Cas.

Cas protested with a grumble the first time Dean brought him close and then squeezed firmly around his base. The second time it turned to whimper, and the third sounded more like a wail. By the fourth, Cas was a babbling, begging mess, and only then did Dean breathe and talk him through his calm down before he started stroking him again.

“Too slow,” Cas complained, “I need more, Dean, please, I can’t…” his words were swallowed as Dean’s thumb stroked over his head teasingly slowly, and Cas tried to thrust up in to his hand.

Dean only answered with kisses to the back of his neck, and the same, steady stroking.

“Dean…” Cas started chanting in soft gasps that Dean had to close his eyes to and bite down on his lip. Dean stroked him two, three more times before rolling him on to his back, pushing away the cover and Cas’ shirt up. And only then did he lightly tighten his grip and increase his pace.

Cas’ head thrashed back and forth against the pillow with continued whimpers and his hips thrust up as though he had no control over them. Dean leaned down over him, lacing his fingers through the hand nearest to him and smiling as he watched Cas’ other grip on tightly to the sheets.

A couple more breathy  _ Deans  _ escaped, before one long, drawn out one, and Cas was coming, hard enough to arch up a little from the bed. When he slumped back down with a thud, he let out the most satisfied of grunts Dean thought he’d ever heard, and laid, boneless, before him.

Dean gave him a few minutes to calm down, gently wiped him off, placed one soft kiss to his lips and shifted back to Cas’ side, hand resting over Cas stomach. He watched Cas’ eyes; they didn’t open once, and Dean remained silent until he was absolutely certain that Cas was asleep.

Only then did Dean allow himself to delicately move to switch the light off and curl up next to him.

  
  
  



	3. You know you love someone when you can spend the whole night just sitting by the fire, watching them sleep

Okay, maybe instead of a fire all they’ve got is the glow from the desk lamp in the corner. And yes, perhaps Dean has come to this revelation because somehow he’s found himself mid- [ Dawson’s Creek ](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0555201/) binge, because hey, Netflix does that to you. But, Dean thinks, a truer statement has never been said.

 

“ _ You know you love someone when you can spend the whole night just sitting by the fire, watching them sleep _ ,” Grams says sagely, and Dean looks down from the screen to where Cas is asleep with his head on his lap, snuggled under the blanket Dean threw over him about an hour ago because he knows how grumpy Cas gets when he wakes up cold.

 

Dean can’t help but smile, and can’t stop himself stroking a hand down Cas’ arm, unnecessarily rearranging the blanket to make sure no air can get in. Cas’ lips are a little parted, and his hair’s fallen across his forehead in the way it always does; Dean reaches up unthinkingly to smooth it back.

 

He looks back up at the screen, and watches.

 

The episode ends with Pacey watching Joey sleep, and as the screen fades to black, Dean’s smile widens.

 

He glances down again; how could he not love Cas? After everything they’ve been through together, and after all they’ve done, here they are. Against all odds imaginable.

 

Cas is his rock, his centre, and his reason even when he argues adamantly against it.

 

The fear of loving someone and then losing him just doesn’t even register anymore for Dean. Cas is, quite literally, everything to him. And he doesn’t care one bit if anything tries to separate them. Because whatever it is, it will lose.

 

He’s planning on never letting go of Cas again.

 

Dean traces a finger along the curve of Cas’ ear, grinning as Cas wrinkles his nose under his touch. Then he bends down, gently, so as not to disturb Cas too much, and into his ear, he whispers, “I love you,”

 

He’s mostly sure that Cas is still fast asleep and unaware, but he watches as Cas’ lips form a smile, and Cas wriggles against him like a contented cat.


End file.
